


Just a Young Gun with a Quick Fuse

by 2towels



Series: Hitchhiker's Guide to a Galaxy Family [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura drives a pink van, Alternate Universe - Hitchhiking, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Grocery Shopping, Hitchhiking, Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, Keith is angry and in general makes bad decisions, Klance Week 2017, Klance Week 2017: Scars, M/M, Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Swearing, Volfam, and its name is Voltron, drowned cat Keith, it's subtle tho, keith has a tattoo, not officially but they adopted each other, pop tarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 18:12:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10949988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2towels/pseuds/2towels
Summary: "He looks like a drowned cat!" Keith heard someone say from within—the one who'd opened the door, he thought. He kept his eyes on the driver, a young woman with two long silver braids falling over her shoulders and a model-worthy white smile, all politeness."Where are you off to?" Her voice was accented—posh, his social worker would have said—and held no suspicion or malice. Keith lowered his thumb, then his fist slowly.--Keith, a hitchhiking failure, meets his future and his doom through a poorly executed plan.Klance Week 2017 Day 3: Scars





	Just a Young Gun with a Quick Fuse

The busy highway was filled with soulless people, it seemed. Keith wouldn't shiver under the pelting rain, couldn't walk back to the nearest gas station he'd been kicked out of, and refused to give any of the passing cars anything brighter than his deepest glower. A voice in the back of his head reminded him that general unfriendliness might be exactly why he didn't have any ride offers in the first place, but he was known for ignoring that voice.

It felt as if his thumb had been in the air for an hour now, but, admittedly, Keith wasn't keen on checking the time to fully account for this frustrating failure in finding a ride. Even everything in his backpack was bound to be soaked through the canvas material, which was perhaps the most distressing of the whole situation.

He hoped there was a hundred car pile-up of everyone who had ignored him on the side of the road. As soon as he thought so, he guiltily regretted it, admitting he would pass himself, too. A part of him wished he'd gotten into that disgusting purple hummer fifteen minutes ago, but the driver had taken one dragged-out and hungry look at Keith and the latter had walked away from the open door without a second guess. He was desperate, but not that much so.

With a swipe of his soggy free hand across his soggier face, Keith almost debated the idea of throwing himself over the hood of a car. Actually...He would survive— _knew_ he could angle it well regardless of speed—and then he could feign injury and take advantage of their guilt by insisting they don't need to call the police, implying instead he could be dropped off at the nearest hospital with a handful of bills. A ride and money, if executed correctly. He was desperate for both, and knew, somewhere, his plan had flaws, but he was vaguely delirious with frustration and hunger. He could feel himself boiling. Down the side of his upper arm he had his personal mantra etched deeply into the skin, but it had been over a decade since he'd seen the source of any of his patience and focus, and almost a year since he'd even heard from Takashi at all.

Waste of a tattoo, in the end.

After swiping at his face again, Keith readied himself, crouching his knees slightly and watching a van chug around the far end of the bend the highway emerged from. Vans were creepy but promising, and it didn't seem company affiliated, so there was less risk of genuine legal involvement. It was pink, suspiciously enough, but it wasn't time to worry about that. He kept his thumb poised for imitation, not wanting his awkward position of being ready to jump to be obvious.

When the van was slowing, Keith nearly hissed at his missed opportunity, but took a small comfort in knowing another car would be by very soon.

To his surprise, the van stopped completely just in front of him.

Surprising him further, the door popped open on the side.

"He looks like a drowned cat!" He heard someone say from within—the one who'd opened the door, he thought. He kept his eyes on the driver, a young woman with two long silver braids falling over her shoulders and a model-worthy white smile, all politeness.

"Where are you off to?" her voice was accented—posh, his social worker would have said—and held no suspicion or malice. Keith lowered his thumb, then his fist slowly.

There was a spindly looking girl in the passenger seat, giant glasses perched on her nose and face illuminated in the dim car by the cell phone in her hand.

Directly behind her was a large man with his snoring head resting on a lankier one. The latter was raising an eyebrow at him, hand still posed on the door handle, but he had an excited face and sparkling eyes.

_Stop that,_ Keith thought,  _You're too hungry to care about pretty people right now._

Behind the sparkly-eyed boy was a broader man with an incredibly comforting and familiar smile, but Keith didn't think he knew him, not like he could have, anyway. He had a loose sense of reliability and influence, but Keith, famished and confused by his hours in the rain, had no idea why he would know that. Across the man's nose was a jagged scar, his hair had a sprout of white too mature for the rest of him, and his right arm was either excellently tattooed or completely mechanical. He looked excited, and was freaking Keith out a little bit with his sharp and dancing gaze.

A horn sounded as a car passed the stopped van.

"I have knives." Keith blurted as he passed the sparkly-eyed, now curious, gaze again to look past him to the driver. Mentally, he screamed at himself, wondering why he suddenly felt so honest.

The driver seemed to rear her head back a little more, and the scrawny passenger girl set her phone down to glance over her shoulder as well.

"He can sit by me. I'm awake." The scarred man said.

With a curt nod, the driver asked again, "Where are you headed?"

"Nowhere." He replied automatically, climbing in once she nodded.

"No knife business, alright?" The man in the third row said as Keith nodded and sat beside him, "Lance, do you have a towel?"

Sparkly Eyes was watching him as he closed the door again, but seemed to jump a little at the address. "Yeah. I stole, like, three from Motel 5." A crooked grin pulled at his lips, and Keith pulled out his phone to distract himself from such an expression with surveying the extent of all things damp.

The man beside him made a grunting noise, but Sparkly Eyes—Lance, his name was Lance—ignored the disapproving sound. The car was moving again, and two towels were thrown at Keith, who flinched.

"Oh," Lance was saying as Keith slowly pulled them off of his face to dry his hands and phone, "I thought you were paying attention. Sorry."

"I wasn't." Keith, a little acidic, might have glared, but shoved his face into the towel before Lance could retaliate. When his hair was dried a little and fluffed from the vigorous drying, he shoved headphones on and let his music play an undertone to his suspicion and eavesdropping. He had knives, the back of his mind stupidly assured him, and three of the five people in the car could be beaten if need be, he was sure was guaranteed.

"You said you know him, Shiro?" A voice from the front, not Lance or their driver, asked. Who the fuck was Shiro? The man next to him, he guessed, but Keith wanted to know why he couldn't remember.

Instead, he fell asleep.

Hours later, he guessed, Keith woke up to an empty van with a damp back and kinked neck. They were parked in a large lot attached to a Food Lion.

_You could steal the car_ , a voice whispered in his conscious, and he could. The group wasn't anywhere in sight, and he wasn't necessarily unfamiliar with what he would need to do to hot-wire it.

Who was Shiro?

A part of him didn't want to leave the car, not wanting to be stranded in whatever town they were in without a ride again, but he was starving and had a pounding headache, and he knew he needed to get somewhere and see what his last ten dollars could get him to eat. He also, somewhere deep down, had a feeling that he wouldn't be left behind,but was an expert in ignoring that level of subconscious trust. He took his backpack, just in case, after shoving his headphones and dead phone inside the larger pocket.

There was always something domestically unfamiliar about grocery stores to Keith, but he tended not to think about it because it was a useless thing to know about himself. In front of the bright white Food Lion, however, he felt weirdly unprepared. The automatic doors shied away from him, and an old woman toting a cart full of bagged groceries eyed him without reservation or mercy. He tipped his head, ingrained with weird respect for all older citizens, as detestable as they proved themselves.

Inside the grocery store was freezing, and Keith felt a chill up his spine as he wandered the aisles, cursing his rain damped back. He stuck by the deli section at first, having seen the pre-made sandwiches immediately and knowing that was in the right area. With one in hand, he wandered further into the store, crossing his arms tightly despite the sandwich and looking for something that would keep longer—crackers or granola bars to save for emergencies in case he did, in fact, get left behind by this van of people.

Not two aisles in, he ran into the man who'd been sitting in front of him. He looked about his age, and very enthusiastic now that he was awake and scanning different jars of jams and jellies. Oddly enough, he didn't seem to notice Keith until he had lingered for more than a few minutes at his side.

"Oh, sorry, am I in your way man?" The big guy asked, stepping aside with a curious look on his face. Keith shook his head and rose an eyebrow, glancing at the jellies again when the man shrugged and went back to his business.

Before Keith could open his mouth to wonder if there was anything he could gather for them, somebody called from a few aisles over, "Hunk! What kind of pop tarts do you think Keith likes?" At the sound of his name, Keith couldn't help his glare, remembering specifically that he hadn't introduced himself, but when he realized who was speaking, Lance's face flickering in his mind for a second, he involuntarily calmed a little.

The question seemed to throw Hunk, if that was him, off for a moment, and he looked at Keith with great interest before jumping. "I didn't even realize it was you!" He cried, a little personally dismayed sounding, "Sorry, dude, you look so much less angry in your sleep."

"Excuse me?" Hunk seemed to have noticed his mistake, too, because his smile jumped on a little nervously. Keith almost felt bad for him, looking so caught off guard.

"Huuuunk!" Lance called again. Did he think screaming in grocery stores was okay?

A soft laugh left Hunk. "Well? What kind of pop tarts do you want?" He asked.

"Don't buy me anything." Keith responded heatedly, feeling his ten dollar bill crumbled into a sad ball in his hand. The scars over his knuckles flexed with the action, and he distracted himself with watching his arms.

Hunk didn't seem deterred. "You seem like a cherry sort of guy. Or strawberry. Something red." With a satisfied nod to himself, he called back to Lance, "Cherry!"

"Woo!"

Keith lifted his glare back to Hunk, who was trying to determine between blackberry jam and lemon marmalade without a care in the world for his new traveling companion. Again, before he could say anything to the man, Lance interrupted, this time by appearing at the end of the aisle. His arms were laden with pop tart boxes of different varieties, and he looked excited just to be surrounded by groceries.

"Oh," He said as soon as he saw Keith, who stiffened, "Here, you can carry yours. Cherry okay? I didn't even know you were awake! Sorry to leave you behind." He spoke a little rapidly as he approached, tossing a box of pop tarts when he was near enough and smiling as Keith caught it much better than he had the earlier towel.

"Fine." Keith said, looking away from Lance's bright and friendly gaze to stare at the box he'd caught with his free hand. He could tell that Lance and Hunk were engaged in a silent conversation when he'd glanced up by the intensity in both of their gazes at one another, but Hunk was the first to break it by holding out his grocery basket and letting Lance dump all the boxes of pop tarts inside.

"So, Keith," Lance said casually, walking down the aisle to look at jars of peanut butter and hazelnut spreads. "What's your story?"

Casting a glance at Hunk, who began shuffling away to a different aisle, Keith padded after the lankier boy, though he scowled at the question. Instead of an answer, he gave a grunt. Lance laughed and grabbed two jars of peanut butter before moving on.

"What are you grabbing so much junk for?" He found himself asking as Lance reached above him to try and slap the aisle sign marker as they passed. He missed it by a few feet, at least, it being so high up on the ceiling, but Lance didn't look phased.

"These are for Pidge. She eats this stuff like crazy because she hates granola bars and trail mix on the road. She also only eats Skippy instead of Jif like a normal person, so it's better to grab two of them probably, in case we run out before we feel like stopping for real food again." He explained, turning aisles into the chips and cookies section. Keith eyed a box of generic shortbread cookies longer than strictly necessary, and Lance grabbed it without a word.

Keith found himself asking, "Who's Pidge?" before he could stop himself. He wasn't one to get introductions done and out of the way unless reminded and necessary, but he couldn't help but wonder which of the two remaining unnamed passengers was the one with the picky eating habits.

Lance hummed. "Scrawny girl on her phone in the front seat. She always calls shotgun and even when she doesn't Allura lets her have it because she's the favorite. Hunk always gets the middle row because if he sits in the back he gets motion sick, by the way, so you're stuck in the back if you don't want him to fall asleep on you." While he spoke he didn't make much eye-contact, much to Keith's casual dismay as his eyes danced to other items on the shelves. "So, what's your story?" He asked the question as if he hadn't before, and his casualty caught Keith off guard, forcing him to wonder how many times he'd avoid it.

"I don't have one." Keith decided on, "Not really."

"Um," Lance sounded like he was trying not to laugh, "I beg to differ. You were glaring at a road in the rain in the middle of Maine—hey look poetry! Anyway, you definitely have a story. You have bloody knuckle scars all over your hands! You're wearing all black and red! You look like an anime character, dude."

Keith missed his gloves, glowering as his hands tightened around the poor box of pop tarts. "I said I don't have one." He re-affirmed.

The lankier boy snorted and shrugged. "Alright, mullet. Have it your way. Do you like Combos?"

"Why are you buying me things?" Keith snapped out, admittedly huffing a little to himself at the casualty and familiarity Lance spoke with.

"You're in the car, Keithers. Just trying to make sure we're all fed." Lance seemed surprised at Keith's own hostility, if not a little confused, but seemed to easily go with the flow of the conversation, no matter how antagonistic.

"Don't call me that." He hissed, "I don't have that much money on me."

A dramatic eye roll was the only response for a moment, Lance's entire body bunching and seeming to roll with the action as well. "I'm getting them  _for_ you. You look skinny and almost sort of sick, honestly, so either you tell me you like Combos and we move on or tell me you don't and we find something else to go with whatever gross protein bars Hunk is going to make you eat."

Keith didn't like that at all, glaring at the plastic bag Lance's hand was poised in front of. "Don't do me any favors."

"Cool. Noted. We're still buying you food. Don't even sweat it, Allura's loaded or something. It's super suspicious, but whatever." Lance shrugged and started wiggling his fingers at the bag of Combos. On his hand, Keith noted, was the telltale sign of scarring along his knuckles, too, though much less pronounced than Keith's own.

Keith felt his fingers flex the more he watched Lance's. "What are Combos?" He grunted, taking a step closer and peering at the white bag. Lance's fingers stilled, and Keith could see a whipping scar clearly along his wrist, though most of it was obscured by a ridiculous amount of woven bracelets, all different colors and textures.

"Are you serious?" The bright boy's voice was graver, more serious than it had been just seconds ago, even sounding a little strained. "They're—They're bite-sized pretzel tubes with powdery cheese in the center."

"That sounds disgusting." Keith said slowly, watching as Lance lifted the bag with care and held it beside the shortbread cookies.

A deep breath. "You can try some, and if you don't like them, Shiro will eat the rest." Lance said delicately, oddly serious and defensive-seeming about the snacks.

"Who is Shiro?" Keith asked in a rush, remembering an earlier mission lost to weariness.

For a moment, Lance seemed stumped by the question, glancing up at the bright white ceiling of the Food Lion and thinking. "Honestly, that's a good question. He's got an epic of a story from the little pieces I've put together, but I think even then there's stuff he doesn't talk about. I think he told us his real first name over breakfast one morning, or something, because 'Shiro's just a nickname, but I can't remember what it is...I sleep in a lot. Taku? Tak..." When he glanced back down, he registered Keith's stark face and paused, "If you mean in the car, he's the guy who was next to you—Wait, he said he knew you. Do you not know him?"

A slow, agonizing breath left Keith as he passed the box of cherry pop tarts back to Lance. He peeled off his hoodie the second Lance's fingers had caught the snack and stared the taller boy square in the eye when he asked, "Where the fuck is Takashi?"

Paler and definitely more aware of Keith's earlier knife warning, Lance cleared his throat and said, sparkly eyes widened, "Picking out bread with Allura last I saw."

As Keith marched off, fire in his eyes, Lance followed. Sure enough, Shiro was there pointing at a bag of wheat bread with what could only be described as indignant defense in his expression, while Allura picked up a bag of Wonderbread and put it in her cart, bored.

"Takashi." Keith said in a huffing breath, feeling his tattoo on his upper arm like a fresh and burning brand. Shiro didn't glance up. "Takashi!" Keith called, much louder and angrier this time.

Shiro's eyes flicked over as his hand froze, pointed at the bread still. "Keith!" He smiled, brightened impossibly, "Glad to see you're awake! Are you doing alright?"

Keith, as he approached with Lance behind him, took in Shiro's features all over again. The fresh scar across his nose, the metallic arm, the shock of white hair.

"He has knives!" Lance called helpfully and a little bit in warning, squeezing himself past a display of M&Ms to step in front of Keith's path. Keith stilled, hands twitching immediately to grab and push Lance, but Lance's gaze was so interested and earnest, so bright and beautiful, that Keith's own fire felt cooled, and for a moment, he hated it.

"Takashi." Keith said again, now that they were closer and he could hear him even though Keith wasn't looking away from Lance's face. "Where have you been since last  _February_ ?" His tone was pure venom, but he couldn't be bothered to control his anger.

Shiro, at least, recognized Keith's fury for what it was, and approached with a much sadder look on his face. "I...This happened. I've been moving around for a while now. I tried to send some letters to the last place I could remember you were around, but..."

Keith understood, glancing away from Lance and taking a step back from his protective stance as his glare felt weaker and more vulnerable. That wasn't going to fly in the middle of a Food Lion. Composing his wet eyes, he lifted them again slowly to his older brother and set his hands on one of Lance's lifted arms to slowly force him to lower it. It didn't budge for a second, but slowly followed Keith's silent order as Shiro rested a hand on Lance's shoulder as well.

"I missed you." Keith hissed, crossing his arms and clamping a hand over his tattoo he'd gotten now that it was exposed. There was a purpose to giving it air, but it felt wrong to shove it in Shiro's face now, too mean and guilt-inducing.

Shiro took a deep breath. "I missed you too, kid."

"It's good to have you back." Keith huffed as Shiro wrapped mismatched arms around him and gave him a few strong strikes to the back in comfort.

The sound of a cart rolling interrupted them slightly, and Allura whispered, not subtly, to Lance, "I don't quite understand what's going on."

To which Lance said, "This is so emo. You guys ready to check out?"

Once the hug was over, Keith slipped his hoodie back on before it could become obvious what he'd ingrained on his skin, and they did a circling of the grocery store, cart half full, to find the rest of their group. Lance stuck close to Keith, who pointedly walked  _behind_ Shiro to spare himself from sharing more meaningful glances with the man. Despite looking much more wary of the "drowned cat" they'd picked up some indeterminable time ago, Lance kept himself as colloquial and cheerful as before, pointing at things as they passed them in the grocery store and asking Allura, as obnoxiously as he could, if they could get every little trinket and toy displayed. Her tired "no" was, admittedly, funny to hear from such a young and not motherly looking woman, but Keith wasn't in the mood to laugh.

When Shiro turned around, a little curious looking, and asked, "Lance, do you like grocery stores?" Lance had a surprisingly sheepish look on his face, and Keith couldn't help but admire the quick shift of features and diversity of reactions from the boy.

It was a strange question actually, once Keith thought about it, but he couldn't help but wonder himself when he registered why Shiro would ask. Lance was, undoubtedly, absolutely ecstatic to be trailing along the cold tiled aisles.

"I guess." Lance laughed, suddenly a little awkward. Keith watched him closely, unable to look away as Lance swallowed and scratched the back of his neck. On that hand, opposite from the one Keith had observed over the Combos, there were little scars over the knuckles as well. What was Lance's story, then, if he was so insistant and nosey? "My mom has a lot of kids, so I mean...it was sort of a big deal to go to the grocery store when I was a kid, because she obviously couldn't take all of us." Suddenly, he laughed, "I see kids walk around screaming when they get brought into stores and I just can't believe that. They have no idea how good they have it! Whenever my mom would let me come with her I was an  _angel_ ."

"I doubt that." Keith blurted, looking away. Lance squawked and Shiro rose an eyebrow when Allura laughed and agreed, so Keith explained, "The whole time I've been here he's just been picking up stuff and asking Allura to buy all kinds of junk. Imagine how much worse he was when he was younger."

"Excuse me," Lance huffed, drawing Keith's calculating gaze back inevitably, "I'll have you know I was an angel, a  _doll_ , when I was a child in grocery stores, and I only ask Allura to buy all those different shapes of sandwich cutters because they're adorable and I know she loves adorable junk."

"That's a bad excuse." Keith pointed out.

"I can't believe this."

Before their banter could spiral further down, Hunk was found in aisle ten with Pidge, who was in the middle of climbing him like a tree to reach his shoulders.

"I got tired of walking." She said when nobody asked, "Are we done, then?"

Hunk added everything to Allura's cart when she nodded, and together, as a rag tag sort of team of varying degrees of unfamiliarity, they all made their way to the registers. Hunk and Pidge both separately insisted that the bagger use paper bags, Allura paid for everything with an almost startlingly shiny gold credit card, and Lance looked weirdly delighted to push the cart. Keith's chest was warm and full as he took in each passenger of the van, though he didn't notice in favor of telling Lance that he had terrible taste in candy and giving Pidge a high five when she agreed.

The van was named "Voltron," according to Allura, and when they all piled in, groceries scattered around the floor and shoved into the trunk with a wall of different types of bags and duffels, Shiro sat in the middle with Hunk, who popped a Dramamine pill, and Lance nestled in next to Keith. He winked at Keith when Keith asked him if he had a car charger, tapped his chest, and frowned when Keith didn't get what at all he meant. Energy subsiding from the grocery run, he passed an adapter to Keith and put headphones in while he hummed. Keith, inexplicably, found himself smiling at the new neighbor of his, and when Lance caught the look he haltingly smiled back.

Allura didn't give any indication of having a specific destination, but she did ask, "Vermont?" with a certain level of ease. Everyone gave various casual thumbs ups, and the van sputtered to life, pulling out of its space and leaving the Food Lion behind.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Now this is another thing that's definitely a series, I'm just not sure when exactly I'll be posting a lot more of it. It's Volfam centric, with Klance majorly playing a part while they all go through some personal discoveries and travel the country in a beat up pink van. Allura's rich, in charge, and running from something with the poise of a princess, and along the way she picks up five varying degrees of helpless strangers.
> 
> Anyway, I was thinking about making this entire week DnD au fics because that would've been hilarious, but the next section didn't fit the day no matter how much I wanted it to. That being said, the next section is being written right now, sooo...that's eventually coming. I'm so happy I got so much reception on that, though! Thank you all so much! For those of you who haven't read the series, it's right over hereo: [Link!](http://archiveofourown.org/series/729294)
> 
> Double anyway, the title is from an Imagine Dragons song from my playlist for this AU (which I'll share once it's completed and organized because I think it's cute to provide a musical tone to anything you write), song found: [here!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKopy74weus&t=8s)
> 
> Triple anyway, come talk to me on [tumblr](http://2towels.tumblr.com)! I always forget to link my blog in my fics here, but I have asks open there and anyone can totally send me little prompts and I'll write blurbs whenever I have time, plus I just love talking to people and all, sooooo ;^)


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